Schultz, Ouellet cut by ‘Dogs

Schultz, who was acquired from St. Louis along with Lars Eller in the 2010 trade for Jaroslav Halak, took a step backward in his career when he was sent to Wheeling of the ECHL. Conditioning has been a continuing problem for Schultz, who was being challenged by Zach Stortini and Kyle Hagel for the tough guy role with the Bulldogs.

Joe Stesjkal, a rookie from Dartmouth College, AHL journeyman forward Stefan Chaput and forward Olivier Fortier are also headed for Wheeling while Michigan State forward Daultan Leveille was assigned to San Francisco of the ECHL.

Ouellett, who played two seasons for Canadiens coach Michel Therrien in Pittsburgh, was among nine players released outright. The 30-year-old has been out of the NHL for three seasons but he was viewed as an insurance policy because of his experience.

The Bulldogs released four other forwards who were on tryouts _ Spencer Bennett, Kyle Rank, Zack Torquato and Brendan Ranford. Defencemen Cody ild and Sebastien Owuya and goaltenders Scott Darling and Cody Reichard were released, They were all in camp on tryouts.

There are nine defencemen still in camp with three tryout vying for the seventh spot. They are Etienne Boutet from Rimouski; Kevin Gagne, who was Nathan Beaulieu’s teammate in Saint John and Antoine Corbin, a Granby native who has been playing in Medicine Hat.

The 29 remaining will leave Sherbrooke Thursday for the second phase of the training camp in Trenton, Ont.

83 Comments

Thanks for the link the Plekanec article. It was a great read and I am reminded again why he is my favourite Hab. I am glad he is having fun playing hockey and I hope he gets his wish in finding a new winger to play alongside him and Gio (hint hint Eller…that will work).

Glad you liked it Justin, I wanted to make sure people could access it, since HIO put up bad url for it.
I’m guessing it will have to be Eller and Gionta helping out Plekanec, there’s just no one else that could easily slide into a top 6 role, and at the very least will give some prime ice time to Eller.

That is all Tomas needs, skilled, dependable wingers and people will realize the talent he has (it was not all Kovy and Kostitsyn back then). And like you said, this would give vital ice time to Lars, as I think he can handle it.

I still remember a game last season Eller played with Plekanec, they complimented each other very nicely. Total puck control in the O-zone. Fun to watch.

So Pat Brisson has announced that both Briere and Giroux are heading overseas to play in the German League.
With Giroux, Malkin, Spezza, Kovalchuk, Ovetchkin, among others, all heading over, the NHL’s top players (it appears) are certainly better prepared to hunker down for the long haul.
As I’ve posted before, I’d be surprised if this lock-out doesn’t last the year.
Every time both sides sit down, they come out claiming that the other hasn’t made any concessions, and if the NHL thought they could play hard ball with the players, I’d say the players appear ready to do the same.

I think more than 90% of the NHLPA rank and file are not receiving pay checks for playing hockey.

I don’t know the exact number, but I would guess well over 600(maybe 650) out of 700 NHL players have not found work.

How exactly are these players playing hard ball? I’m not following.

Its more like t-ball.

The “hard ball” is being played against the 3rd and 4th liners, the 5th, 6th, 7th, d-men, the guys that are healthy scratches, the guys who don’t even know if they will be offered another NHL contract next year.

If you do the math, that’s at least 250 – 300 players, or about half the league, who are trying their best to keep a lid on their frustration and anguish.

I’m not disagreeing with your assessment Ed.
But there seems to be more solidarity and commitment to hold the line than during the last lock-out.
I’m basing part of the on the Souray article in this morning’s Gazette.

And it appears that there are a good number of players either heading overseas or finding work at the minor league levels.

But you’re right, it doesn’t bode too well for the 3rd and 4th liners, and the over 35 players coming to the end of their careers.

I would guess that very few of the players who have gone overseas are getting paid. In the articles I’ve seen (see today’s Plekanec story) it sounds like the only pay they’re getting is insurance against injury. If that is in fact true, then the only difference between them and the guys who haven’t gone to play is that they are going to be in better game shape if/when the lockout ends.

The idea that somehow the elite players are getting fat at the expense of the 4th line guys doesn’t really hold up.

It looks like the players are following Fehr’s “no negotiating” strategy all the way to Europe for (mostly) crappy pay. Most of the players will be decimated financially and they will never get a chance to earn $500K + doing anything else in their brief 4 or 5 season careers. The last lockout saw 240 + players lose out and never play again.

That should not be a big deal, but I’m trying to organize hockey nights with some buddies, and some of them are quite new to hockey so the commentary is of great benefit for them.
If they did not offer it over the stream I would have looked for the radio broadcast to play along the stream.

The article goes to the heart of the fundamental mistrust the players, fans and sponsors have of the commissioner. It is tough to quantify how much if anything that mistrust costs the league in revenues during prolonged lockouts. But, that is a matter for the owners to ponder.

Not surprised to see the news of Schultz cut/reassigned. If after all the mentions of conditioning to him the past few seasons didn’t hit the mark, well there is only so much time for patience. I wonder also if the emergence of Quailer at camp this year also hurt Schultz. I don’t expect him to be a scrapper per se, but another bigger body who also seems to have a higher skill level.

Gauthier was GM at the time. Schultz was playing in the WHL at the time.

How many games of Schultz do you think Gauthier even saw. The time an NHL GM spends scouting the CHL in a normal year (no lockout) is very minimal. There is too much to do at the NHL level with scouting your own team and 30 others in the league.

Schultz may have been the wrong piece but I won’t put that on Gauthier’s scouting ability.

There was one of two failures here, and we really don’t know which one it is…. because we don’t have the scouting reports.

1) A WHL scout screwed up and overvalued Schultz. (This stuff happens, its not an exact science, and with Gallagher, Thrower, Dietz, Bozon, MacMillan our western scouts have been good recently).

2) Gauthier screwed up in trading and didn’t ask for enough of a second piece in return after getting Eller (the main piece he coveted).

The fault may still lie on Gauthier, and given his track record, plus our western canadian scouts track record i’m inclined to believe it probably does lie with Gauthier, but I don’t think his scouting abilities were the issue in this particular trade. I bet he hadn’t seen Schultz more than once before making the deal.

You make some good points Ben, however, given the previous track record of PG as a pro scout when it came to finding a top centerman for the Habs, his resume begins to look worse. No need mentioning whom this highly paid centreman is.

I for one am just very happy we have a complete different group of people heading up the front offices of the Habs, and that the coaching group also seem to have been addressed. Seems like there is more uniformity throughout the organization, the days of the tight lipped PG and the almost secrecy of information from GM to Coach to player seems to be gone. There is transparency now in the decision making process as it relates to player personel.

Shultz is ALL Gauthier. If I’m a GM with years of scouting experience and I’m about to trade my playoff hero/potential franchise goalie, I make damn sure I watch a lot of tape of the players coming back.

I’m the farthest thing from a pro scout but anybody can tell Shultz would never be an NHL-caliber skater.

I’m glad Markov took a job in the KHL. At least we’ll know a head of time if his knee is going to hold up for another few seasons with the Habs. If he plays and skates well in the KHL it’s a great sign.

And Schultz, when we were team Smurf a couple seasons ago I was excited that he might pan out and be a rugged 4th line player. With the emergence of Ryan White and the Brandon Prust signing, I wish Schultz the best of luck in the ECHL.

It will be great to see Markov rust free and in shape to start the season if any of it is salvaged this year. That alone could move us up a few spots in the standings.

I too had high hopes for Schultz, it’s a shame he regressed and didn’t stay in shape over the summer. But he’s only 22 and may yet redeem himself. He still has time, here’s hoping he gets serious about things.

I am having trouble with holding onto our reservations at the Baton Rouge, Cora’s and Hurley’s Pub for our Summit events!

I have to confirm by Thursday the (now) 10th, to the Baton Rouge.
I have been speaking to the Bell Center and I am expecting a call again today to say weather they can confirm our game or cancel. I can not make a move until I hear from them. But they are in the same boat about not knowing.
If I cancel our venues and the league starts playing, we won’t have much of a Summit. Also people that are flying, their plane tickets are in jeopardy.
I need a cancel sign from the Bell Center in order to get replacement tickets for another game of our choosing, this year or next.

IMPORTANT
Please do not lose your tickets or misplace them. They are the only thing we have to get a replacement with.!!!!

What’s that I read? Cancellation of the preseason games amounts to $100 million in lost revenue?
Hmmm, that’s one wing lopped off the goose that lays the golden eggs. Just how far are these idiots prepared to carry on this charade of negotiating a contract before the goose/season/fan support expires?

***

“Alex, I’ll take Hockeyatomy for $200″
“NHL negotiators are said to lack this in crafting a fair deal.”
Buzzzzz! “What is a stomach?”
“Correct.”
“Hockeyatomy for $400.”
“Commissioner of the National Hockey League.”
Buzzzzz! “Who is a heel?”
“Correct.”
“Hockeyatomy for $600.”
“Team support staff, souvenir makers, waitresses, bartenders and street vendors.”
Buzzzzzz! “Whose noses will be out of joint if there is no season?”
“Correct.”
“Hockeyatomy for $800.”
“The Daily Double!”
“I’ll wager $1,500, Alex.”
“Michael Chiklis.”
“Who is Bill Daly’s double?”
“Correct. Pick again, Gerald.”
“Hockeyatomy for $1,000.”
“Jeremy Jacobs. Ed Snider. Don Cherry.”
“Who are ass….ass…anuses!”
“Correct. And there’s the buzzer to mark the end of Double Jeopardy. Old Jim’s in third with $44.25, Gerald has $7,330, and Little Jimmy is in front with $44,000.
Now for Final Jeopardy. The category: Iconic figures. Players, mark your bets.
[Commercial break] Welcome back. The Final Jeopardy category, iconic figures: This fellow is famous for having a dark cloud hover over him and suffers one misfortune after another.”
[Jeopardy music: Doo do doo do ….]
“Players, pens down. Let’s start with Old Jim, what did you put: Who is Villanelle? Ahhhh, no. What was your wager? $500! Whew! Well, Jim, you owe us $455.75.
Gerald, your answer? Who is Joe Btfsplk? The character created by Li’l Abner cartoonist Al Capp. Sorry, that’s incorrect. How much did you bet? $50 in Canadian Tire money. With the exchange rate, that brings you down to $7,279.27.
“Okay, let’s see what Little Jimmy wrote. ‘What is a Maple Leaf fan?’ Correct! How much did you wager? $44,000 plus the $550 the stagehands gave you before the show to replace the bike run over last week by the pizza delivery guy.
Well done, Jimmy. Your total is $88,550. We’ll see you tomorrow.
“Good night.”

” Iconic figures. Players, mark your bets.
[Commercial break] Welcome back. The Final Jeopardy category, iconic figures: This fellow is famous for having a dark cloud hover over him and suffers one misfortune after another…..

Gary Bettman deliberately screwed the Habs and handed Jeremey Jacobs and the Bruins the Cup. The NHL is as corrupt as ever, and Bettman is no more than a lackey for the true powers of the NHL. The league like the lockout is a sham, contrived by a small group of owners who hold all the power and dictate who wins and who loses. Please read article in the Toronto Sun.

Good morning. Before our daily JB and Cal entertainment I’m really disappointed to see Shultz demotion. I’m further dejected when I read the reason for it. Oh well. Obviously the organization is getting stronger and better prospects are available.

And a good mornin’ to J. the giant met fan. Schultz, like Eller has had two full seasons since we parted with our Slovakian keeper who doesn’t know how to rope a calf. Unlike his older brother, Ian just didn’t display enough talent. He probably was in decent shape for the limited amount of ice-time Claude Jodoin gave him, but he is one of the many marginal players who has to be the fittest on the team. Remember Guy Damien Lafleur’s two pack a day habit and smoking between periods? I no longer wonder why his play waned so badly at age 33.

A few years ago former NHLer Claude Lapointe played on my softball team.
He told a story about when he was a rookie with the Nordiques. He figured he’d look gung ho and get to Le Colisee early before a game. He got there at something like 3:00 or 3:30 for a 7:30 game. When he arrived Guy Lafleur was already in full uniform, in running shoes outside a back door smoking a cigarette!

I think contrary to the last lockout, the fans other than the big NHL cities where hockey rules or sports cities like Boston, Philadelphia etc., will not return in droves. It will be a long grind for both players and owners to gain back fan favor, and it will perhaps translate into several franchises turning into a Phoenix/Atlanta type scenario. And you can only move some teams to perhaps 2-3 viable cities for hockey and none of which are US based cities. They should split 50-50 and get back to work.

It’s 6:26 a.m. on October 4. The season is set to begin in one week, but there’s been no training camp and no preseason. Still, the NHL hasn’t cancelled any games. Why not? Because ten days later the teams will have to send refunds to the fans.

This is the level of greed that we are dealing with. The owners will hold our money in their clenched fists for as long as possible, and then smile and remind us that we’re “the greatest fans in the world.” I don’t think as highly of them.